


I inhale great draughts of space

by neonetc



Category: One Direction (Band), Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Djinni & Genies, Gen, Original Character(s), Other, Out of Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonetc/pseuds/neonetc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is captured by a djin, and it's up to the One Direction boys and their new friend Sophia Brown to save him -- or rather, it's up to Sam and Dean, who are on a not-so-relaxing vacation to London.  Features implied violence, vague sexual innuendos, bad dialogue, ooc Sam and Dean because I don't actually watch Spn.  Also, a flying talking dog and an old friend of the Winchester's.  Written for my friend Nicole, dedicated to her love of Destiel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I inhale great draughts of space

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Song of the Open Road" by Walt Whitman

He can't see anything but darkness, black and cold and terrifying. He takes a breath and chokes on it, realizes it's water. His lungs reject it and he tries to cough, but there's no air, no air in his lungs and everything around him is dark and wet and cold and there's no way out.

"This is a dream," he thinks. "This is only a dream." He slams his eyelids shut and tries to remember when he went to bed, where he was, who was there. Tries to bring it back, bring something back, something that he can grab onto to wake himself up. But there's nothing. There's only the moment he opened his eyes to see nothing.

He waits to pass out, isn't that what happens when you're drowning? Drowning is just like falling asleep. He's sure he's heard that somewhere. But this, this is excruciating. He can feel his muscles straining as he thrashes his limbs wildly, trying to swim for the surface, and every blood vessel in his brain is protesting against the pressure.

"I wonder if I was murdered," he thinks as he prepares to die. He knows this is when his whole life should be flashing before his eyes, when he should be thinking about all the things he never got to do, but there's nothing there.

And then there's something, something hard and heavy slamming into his back so forcefully that it shoves his consciousness right out of him.

\-----

This is how Liam Payne likes his Sunday mornings to go: he wakes up at the nice and leisurely hour of 8 AM, sends a "good morning! xx" text message to his girlfriend, takes a shower, eats a breakfast that features CoCo Puffs, and then goes down the hall to Harry and Louis' apartment to make sure they've both made it through the night.

This is what Liam does not like to find in Harry and Louis' apartment on Sunday morning: Louis, in his flannel pj pants and looking terribly hungover, pacing around the living room with his iPhone clutched in his hand.

"Where's Harry?" Liam asks, but he already knows the answer from the panicked look on Louis' face and the distinct lack of Harry Styles' trademark nudity strolling out of his bedroom.

"He was fine at the bar last night," Louis says frantically, pulling at his hair and speeding up his pacing. "And then there was this girl and El said I had to go home because I'd had one too many and she, the girl, not El, she said she'd get him home-"

"Lou," Liam says, interrupting him. "Did you call him?"

"Of course I called him! I'm not an idiot."

"I'd beg to differ," Liam mutters. He pulls his own iPhone, stupid thing that it is, out of his pocket and scrolls through his contacts for Harry's number."

It rings five times and then goes to voice mail. "This is Harry, leave me a message, yeah?" Harry's voice says, and Liam grumbles one off, something like, "we're all going mad here, call us back now, please," and then slumps on the couch.

He sits like that for 20 minutes watching Louis pace and getting more and more anxious himself before he starts yelling.

"This is not my fault!" Ten minutes in to this bickering match and they're getting nowhere, and Louis is glaring at Liam across the dining room table. Liam leans forward and plants his hands on it, tries to look menacing. But he knows he doesn't. He never does.

"Yes, it is!" he yells in return, trying to keep himself from shaking. He has a tendency to do that, just like Louis has a habit of fleeing the room right when a fight hits its peak, just like Harry has a history of drunken nights out followed by morning phone calls begging to be picked up from the farthest corners of the city. That's what's gotten them into this mess, but it's different this time, both Liam and Louis know that. "You're his best mate, and his roommate. You can't let him keep doing this."

"He's 18 years old, for fuck's sake, mate. I can't control him," Louis says, and Liam's just about to say something snarky in reply, something like, "well, maybe you should try harder!" when Louis sighs and pulls out a chair.

Liam sits down in across from him and ignores the unopened newspapers scattered across the tabletop and the cold mug of coffee that's God knows how old, and looks at Louis, who's got his head in his hands and still hasn't gotten dressed this morning.

"I didn't mean that, Lou," Liam says carefully. "It's not your fault."

Louis looks up and makes eye contact with Liam. He looks older than he should, sitting there in his flannel pajama pants running a hand through his hair and worrying about his best friend. "No, it is. Maybe we should try calling him again?"

Liam shrugs and watches as Louis dials the number and hits the speakerphone button, setting the phone on the table between them. Please answer, Liam thinks. And please be clothed this time.

"Hello?" a voice says after three rings. But it's not Harry. It's a girl, and she sounds mildly annoyed.

\------

Sophia Brown is waiting to die.

It started when she was 12 years old and her older brother, who fancied himself the next Bob Marley, told her about the 27 Club, about the group of musicians who all died at 27, all questionable accidents, and that's when she decided that she wasn't meant to be an old woman. She was terrified of them, still is, of millions of bottles of medication on the bathroom counter and walkers with tennis balls for feet and memories lost to Alzheimer's.

Now she's 19 years old and living in London because after she wasn't hit by a drunk driver as a teenager like she was expecting, she decided the next best option was studying abroad in a country where she knew no one and no one knew her. Her brother, ever the sarcastic one, reminded her that if she really wanted to take a risk, she should go to Africa and get malaria or at least go to a country where she doesn't speak the language, but she just flicked a spoonful of ice cream at him and moved on.

No, she takes her risk in smaller doses: she goes out alone at night, doesn't wear her purse on the front of her body to ward off pickpockets, wanders down dark alleys looking for short cuts. But the more Sophia asks for trouble, the less it answers her.

On Sunday morning, Sophia wakes up to cloudy skies and a pounding hangover and absolutely no memory of what she did last night. But she's in her bed and she's in her own pajamas, so that counts for something, she thinks. It's 10 AM and her roommate, a girl called Rory who's from the midwest and wears her hair in two French braids totally non-ironically, is long gone.

"Mmmrph," Sophia groans as she counts to three and heaves herself up off of the bed. She downs two advil and an entire bottle of water and goes to pee.

Then she pulls on her shorts and goes for a run, because she has this theory, this totally mad theory, that the advil will get to her brain faster if she gets her heart rate up and her blood pumping at a higher pace. But really she just likes the illusion that she's sweating out last night's alcohol, and the steady rhythm of her shoes hitting the pavement and the speed of the rap lyrics in her ears, the ones she can't keep up with no matter how hard she tries. She's in the middle of the chorus of one of her favorites and halfway done with her usual route when she hears a ringing.

At first she thinks it's her phone, so she pauses her music to answer it, but there's no one there. Then she spots it, somebody's scuffed white iPhone lying discarded on the sidewalk, ringing like its life depends on it. Sophia looks around and sees that the street is deserted, not strange for this neighborhood this time on a Sunday. So she bends down and picks it up. "Lou Bear," the caller id reads.

"Hello?" she says.

"Is Harry there?" a male voice says urgently. "Is Harry with you?"

"I'm sorry," Sophia says. "I don't know anyone named Harry. I just found this phone on the street-"

"On the street?" a second male voice asks. "Louis, put your clothes on. What street are you on? Where are you?"

"Uh, York and 59th?" Sophia knows this is where she should hesitate, where she should drop the phone and run or possibly call the police, but she's been waiting for something like this since she was 12.

"Don't move, okay?" the second voice says again. "We'll come to you, okay? Don't go anywhere."

"I'm sorry, I'm kind of in the middle of something-" Sophia starts to say, but the first voice cuts in.

"Liam, that's all the way across town!" he whines. "Do I have to come with you?"

"Yes, Louis, since this is all your fault," the second voice says sharply. "Now, doll, what'd you say your name was?"

"Sophia," she says.

"Right. I'm Liam, and Louis and I will be there in twenty minutes, okay? And we need you to not move." Sophia hears shuffling and whining from Louis in the background, and then a door slamming shut and keys jingling. "Just wait for us there, please? This is really important."

"Fine," Sophia says. "I'll be here." It's not like she has anything better to do.

\-----

"Remind me why we're here, please?" Sam says to his brother, who is currently driving their ancient Impala down a busy London street much faster than he should.

"We're on vacation," Dean says, honking the horn at the car in front of him, the driver of which politely extends his middle finger out the window.

"We're not," Sam says with a roll of his eyes. "You don't do vacations." The last time they tried for a vacation, a day of sightseeing in New York City, they ended up fighting off an arachne in a bathtub. Evil follows them around, Sam swears. And knowing Dean, one of those suitcases in the trunk is definitely full of salt.

Dean glares at the back of the car that's just cut them off and veers around a corner as Sam grips the armrest. "Fine, there were some unusual deaths, okay?" he says. "It smells kinda funky. But we can go to Big Ben and that giant ferris wheel thing while we're here."

"And the Tower of London?"

"And the Tower of London, Sammy."

Sam turns his attention to the radio dials, trying to get them to pick up something that isn't static or people with British accents speaking much to quickly to be understood. That distracts him long enough for Dean to make several more sharp turns before pulling up roughly to the curb.

"We're here!" he declares proudly, unbuckling his seat belt.

"And in one piece, too," Sam mutters to himself. "Where is here exactly?"

"York and 59th!"

"York and 59th?" Taking a look around, Sam sees a deserted street and some run-down buildings. There isn't even a Starbucks on the corner. They have Starbucks in London, don't they?

"York and 59th!" But this speaker isn't Dean. He and Sam look over to the sidewalk, where a girl in jogging shorts and sweatshirt is standing, her arms crossed. "Are you Liam and Louis?" she asks in an American accent.

"No," Dean says, getting out of the car. Sam rolls his eyes and follows him. "What are you doing?"

The girl looks at them skeptically. "Waiting for some guys named Liam and Louis to come get this cell phone I found on the sidewalk."

"Right," Sam says, smiling at her politely. "Dean, don't you think maybe you've got the wrong address?"

"No, this is definitely the right address. It's that building right there," he says, pointing to the warehouse on the corner.

"That building's deserted," the girl says. "I run here everyday, there's never anyone there. How'd you get your car to England?"

"Uh," Dean says, glancing down at their Iowa license plates. "We-"

He's cut off by the screeching of tires as a black SUV pulls up behind their Impala. Two boys who look to be about the same age as the girl get out, looking frantic.

"Are you Sophia?" one of them says as they approach the group that's already gathered on the sidewalk.

"That's me," the girl says, reaching into the pocket of her sweatshirt for a white iPhone. "This what you're looking for?"

"Yeah," the first boy says.

"No," says the second.

"What I meant was-" the first one says, running a hand through his hair.

"We're looking for Harry. Are you sure you don't know Harry?"

"I'm sure I don't know Harry," Sophia says. "If that's all you need, I'd really like to finish my run-"

Dean interrupts her this time. "Who's Harry? Is he missing?"

"Harry is our mate," the first boy says. "And he's not missing, he's just-"

"Are you cops?" Sophia asks, her interest picked again.

"No," Dean says. Sam leans on the Impala and watches him, wondering what lie he'll use this time. Will it be "just in the neighborhood" or "we're with the FBI"? "We're private investigators. There have been several other mysterious disappearances in the area lately."

"Oh, like murders?"

"Not like murders!" the second boy says. "He said disappearances. That doesn't mean murders."

Sophia stares at him for a minute before speaking again. "Well, clearly, you've all got this handled. You've got your phone back, so I'll just be on my way now," she says, turning to go.

"No!" the second boy says. "You can't leave! You could've been the last one to see Harry alive!" He whispers the last word, his eyes wide.

"I thought you said he wasn't murdered," Sophia says, eyebrows raised.

"He wasn't, but you can't leave!" the boy says, rushing across the group to clutch at her elbow. "We need your help!"

\-----

Liam watches Louis clutch at Sophia's arm as she looks at him for help, which he ignores. Instead, he turns to the other two people in the group, two men who both need to shave and are clearly not British.

"I'm Liam," he says, extending his hand to the one who's leaning against the car.

"Sam," the guy says, half smiling. "That's my brother, Dean." He gestures at the other one, who is standing with his arms crossed, frowning at Louis and Sophia, who is now listing off reasons she really has to leave.

"Vacation?" Liam asks, attempting to be polite, while really just worrying about Harry. Like why was Harry at York and 59th? This is nowhere near the club Louis left him at last night.

"Sort of," Sam says with a small shrug. "My brother doesn't really do vacations."

"That is so not true!" Dean says, scowling. "What about that time that we went to Florida and-"

"No."

"But what about when we went to the Grand Canyon and-"

"Nope."

"Okay, but that time last year when-"

"No," Sam says. "You don't do vacations."

"Cram it with walnuts, ugly."

They glare at each other for a while as Louis and Sophia chatter away and Liam wonders if he should interrupt either or both pairs, but luckily his phone rings and he doesn't have to make a decision.

"Did you find him yet?" Niall says when Liam answers.

"Nope," Liam says. "But Louis made a new friend."

"Is she fit?" Zayn says, clearly having pulled the phone from Niall's grasp. "She Harry's bird from last night?"

"She says she doesn't know him," Liam answers. "And there are these two private investigators here, they're from America." He turns away from the Impala and walks back toward his SUV, watching Louis over his shoulder. "There've been some disappearances around here lately or something."

"That's not good, mate," Niall says, back on the line again. "You should hire them."

"Are you serious? They're crazy. One of them just said, 'go cram it with walnuts, ugly.'"

"What does that mean?" Niall asks. "Wait, I don't care. Yes, I'm serious!"

"But-"

"No," Niall says. "Go hand the phone to one of them and Zayn'll do it. He's ace at negotiations."

"That was one time-"

"I can handle it, mate," Zayn says. "But pick the nicer looking one."

"Fine," Liam grumbles, walking back toward the group. "My mate wants to speak to you," he says, holding the phone out to Sam. "About hiring you to find our mate Harry."

"No can do," Sam says. "Dean handles all business transactions."

"I only handle shady business transactions!" Dean argues, shaking his head and backing away from the phone that Liam's holding out to him.

"This isn't shady, mate," Liam says.

"We're on a street corner, and you just called me mate, so it's definitely shady."

"Ugh, fine!" Sam says. "I'll take it."

\-----

Sophia's not exactly sure how it happened, but two hours later she finds herself sitting in the living room of Louis and the missing Harry, who she's found out are part of some super famous boy band that she's never heard of because she doesn't listen to shit music. Apparently, if she doesn't help Harry's friends locate him following his wild night of drunkenness and debauchery, she will be putting her life at risk.

"The fan girls," Louis had whispered in her ear as he dragged her toward the SUV, "they will tear you apart. Limb. From. Limb."

Dean, who Sophia had already decided was the better looking of the two brothers, had declared that it was too early to call the police, especially considering Harry's history with drunken nights of debauchery, which Liam promised was extensive. So Dean and Sam went to have a look around the warehouses at 59th and York while Louis and Liam escorted Sophia to her dorm room to change and then onto headquarters.

That's what Louis is insisting on calling their apartment, like they're spies or something, and Liam looks at him like he was crazy (which Sophia thinks he actually might be), but he's carrying on with it anyhow. Sophia decides not to mind it; he's probably just making the best of a bad situation. Harry's his best mate, after all.

Across from her sit Niall and Zayn, who were introduced to her by Liam as the other two bandmates. Since she sat down, Niall hasn't stopped eating popcorn from a giant bowl balanced on his lap, and Zayn hasn't looked up from his cell phone.

"This is terrible," Louis says, mostly to himself, as he paces behind Sophia's couch. "I'm a terrible friend. We shouldn't just be sitting around like this!"

Sophia looks at the other boys, but they don't seem like they're in any hurry to comfort him.

"Now, Louis," she says hesitantly. "I'm sure that Harry is-"

That's when Louis bursts into tears and dives over the couch headfirst into her lap. She's trapped underneath him, rubbing his back and praying to whoever's listening that Liam comes back from wherever he's disappeared to soon.

"So-phiiiiaaaaa," she hears a while later, rousing her from the nap she didn't know she'd been taking. "Sophia, wake up!" Louis calls again as he pokes her in the arm. She opens her eyes to see Louis barely inches from her face.

"Get off me," she says, shoving him. Then she spots Liam across the room, watching them. "Liam, don't just stand there! Help me!"

"Louis," he says sternly. "We've only known Sophia for five hours. You cannot tackle her yet."

"But she's so squishy!"

"I am not squishy!" Sophia says, shoving him more forcefully and standing up. "Look, guys, I'm sorry about your friend and everything, but I really don't think I'm doing much to help, and I have my own life to be living, in case you haven't noticed."

When four pairs of puppy dog eyes turn on her, she thinks she might almost understand the fan girls.

"Fine," she says. "But I'm hungry."

\-----

"Harold! Wake up, Harold!"

Harry comes to on a beach, the sunlight hitting harder than last weekend's hangover, but that's not what he notices first. No, the first thing he notices is the pain in every single part of his body, stabbing and pulsing and worse than drowning. That's the second thing he realizes--he isn't dead.

"I'm not dead," he says as he pushes himself into a sitting position. His voice sounds strange to his ears, dryer despite all the water he knows he's just downed.

"Obviously, Harold!"

"Wha?"

That's when something snaps and his senses start communicating with his brain again, and he feels sand under his hands and sunlight on his face. And in front of him there's a dog with a mermaid's tail, and it's speaking to him in an Australian accent.

"Wha?" he says again.

"Your mother is going to be so upset when she finds out you swam too close to the edge again, Harold!" the dog mermaid says. "Now come along, we have to go! You're late!"

The dog flaps its tail and turns away, and Harry realizes he's swimming in the air.

"Wha?"

"Harold, where has your mind gone? Be a good boy and follow Caesar back to the Castle for some pain medication," the dog says over his shoulder.

"But you're a talking dog mermaid!" Harry says, pulling himself shakily to his feet and taking off after Caesar. "Where am I?"

"Wow, you really did hit your head hard. You're home, Harold, see?"

Harry looks over the dog's head to a castle made of gray stone and sitting atop a hill that's growing bigger as they move toward it. He looks down at his bare feet and wonders if the floors of this "home" of his are cold.

\-----

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Sam asks, looking over at Dean, who ten minutes ago realized he was reading his street map of London upside-down, and has since led them to a red brick walk-up that looks like every other building on every single road they've walked down today.

"Would you stop asking me that?" he says, frustrated. "This is definitely the right one. Number 69, hehheh." He laughs to himself as Sam rolls his eyes. "It's symbolic."

"It's symbolic? You're an idiot." Sam puts his hands in his pockets as he watches Dean fold up the useless map and put it inside his jacket. "Well? You gonna knock?"

"Nah, she knows we're here."

"Is this another psychic?" Sam sighs. "Don't you remember what happened last time, man? All the psychics go blind and shit."

"Nicole's not a psychic, Sammy, just an old friend." Dean steps onto the stoop just as the door opens to reveal a brunette wearing a ponytail and glasses.

"You're supposed to call first," she says, crossing her arms and frowning at Dean, who smiles at her like a lost puppy. She rolls her eyes.

Ah, a woman of my own heart, Sam thinks.

"I heard that," she says as she turns and beckons for them to follow her inside.

"Dean, you said she wasn't psychic," Sam whispers to his brother as they step into the dark entryway. Next to the door is an umbrella stand upon which sit no umbrellas.

"I'm not psychic, Samuel," she says. "You just forgot to keep your thoughts inside your head."

Sam stops listening to the conversation as he gazes around Nicole's kitchen, which is crowded with mugs, so many that they're overflowing from the cabinets, several of which are open, onto the counters. They hang from hooks on the wall and sit unwashed in the sink. Half of them are painted with images of dogs, and the other half have nature scenes on them. Except one that stands out from the bunch--it's got an owl on it.

Sam's reaching out to pick it up--why the one owl?-- when he hears Dean clear his throat, and he realizes that Nicole and Dean are sitting at the kitchen table waiting for him to join them.

"Hands off my mugs," Nicole says once he's seated. He shifts awkwardly under her gaze. "You're looking for the djinn?"

"It's a djinn?" Dean says, cracking his knuckles nervously. "I hate those things."

"Don't we all?" Nicole says, and Sam remembers their previous encounters with the djinn. They're nothing like that genie from "Aladdin," despite what they'd like you to think.

"Which type are they? The cave-dwellers?"

"No," Nicole says, shaking her head. "It's just one, and she's humanoid."

Sam suddenly has a strong craving for tea, the soothing kind that makes facing monsters a bit easier, but Nicole seems to sense him eyeing the mugs, and shoots him a glare.

"What's she look like?" Dean asks.

"There are no survivors, obviously. But my resources say she's young. Changes locations after every kill but seems to be sticking to abandoned buildings, uncrowded neighborhoods. She's smart."

Dean nods, looking grim. "Got any lamb's blood we could borrow?"

Nicole stands from the table and beckons to Sam and Dean to follow her. "In the basement."

As the walk back toward the entryway and then down a dimly lit flight of stairs, Sam asks, "so how'd you two meet, anyway?"

Nicole laughs but doesn't answer.

"The internet," Dean says vaguely.

"You still following that angel around?" Nicole asks, clearly attempting to change the subject, which Sam decides to ignore. "What's his name? Casanova?"

"Castiel," Dean corrects with a grimace.

"More like he follows us around," Sam says, laughing. He's never completely understood his brother's relationship with the angel, but has found it best not to ask.

In the basement, Nicole flips on a light switch that turns on a single bulb dangling precariously from the ceiling and opens several badly organized cupboards before she finds what she's looking for.

"Here, catch," she says, tossing the small glass vial at Sam, who snatches it easily out of the air with one hand. "I don't have a ton more of those, so don't go around stabbing every pretty young girl you see, okay, Samuel?"

"Isn't that what I'm always saying, Sammy?" Dean says, exchanging a grin with Nicole. "We'd better get going. Thanks for your help, Nicole."

"Anytime, Winchester," she says as she follows them back up the stairs. "Just call first."

\-----

In his first six months living the life he can't remember, Harry learns that Liam is his best friend, along with Louis and Zayn and Niall. He has two body guards, Sam and Dean, because his mother is Queen of All the Air, and Caesar is his trusty guard dog, constantly reminding him to eat less chocolate and be nicer to his sister. Harry never listens. He also doesn't listen to Sam and Dean when they tell him not to call them Samueli and Deanald Trump, respectively, which are nicknames whose origins he isn't sure of, but he likes them nonetheless.

He and his mates are part of a world-famous boy band, but there's no such thing as paparazzi, so they can do what they want and go where they want and Harry can get as many stupid tattoos as he wants without anyone but his mother and Caesar complaining. He's fluent in French and Spanish and can travel anywhere he wants without an airplane. The only catch is that he can't swim very well. He and his mates all live together in the his mum's castle with their families and their magical pets, except when they go on tour, but that's always great fun because their mums don't come.

Harry's favorite activity is sword fighting, which Dean finds dull but Sam enjoys and is highly skilled in, thanks to years and years of video games. He's not allowed to use swords with actual points, of course, because his mother is Queen of All the Air (something he doesn't understand and still hasn't bothered to ask Caesar to explain) and after his sister, Gemma, he's the air's heir apparent.

He and Sam are right in the middle of a match when Liam comes running onto the field barefoot. That's how Harry knows something's up. Liam always wears shoes. So he signals Sam and they pause their match.

"What's going on, mate?" Harry asks, bending over to catch his breath. "Where are your shoes?"

"I just met the most amazing girl, Haz, you're not going to believe it!" Liam says through the brightest smile Harry's ever seen, and that's how Liam's whirlwind Disney prince romance begins. The girl's name is Sophia, and apparently she jumps off of bridges out of her own free will and calls Louis out on his whiney bullshit. She sounds a bit too crazy for Harry's taste, but Liam's enamored.

A year later, Liam interrupts Harry's post-lunch pre-dinner nap to announce that they're engaged, and Harry's set to be the best man in the wedding.

"Not now, Li, I'm sleeping," Harry grumbles, so Caesar sits on his head to punish him for his rudeness.

\-----

"Don't you dare ask me if I'm sure this is the place!" Dean snaps before Sam can even open his mouth. All Sam's been doing since they landed in this country is nagging Dean about if he's read the map right, and Dean's getting damn well tired of it. "I have never ever gotten us lost before, so why would I start now?"

"This is a foreign country, bro. And you're reading the map upside down."

"These people drive on the wrong side of the road. It's easier to navigate this way," Dean says, done with the subject. He approaches the warehouse door and notes that the padlock is hanging open. "Now would you please help me with this?"

The two throw their combined weight against the door and it slides open much easier than expected. They only step a foot inside before the smell hits them.

"You call it in this time," Sam says, wandering deeper inside as Dean pulls his cell phone out of his pocket. This is their third warehouse and their third anonymous tip to Scotland Yard of the day.

"Yes sir," Dean says in his best British grandmother accent to the stern man on the other end of the line. "I think something died in the warehouse over on South 39th Avenue. Yes, yes, by the water! It smells absolutely fowl! You see, I was just walking my dog Pumpkin down the street and she just won't stop barking. Yes sir, yes sir, thank you!"

He hangs up the phone just as Sam comes back. "Find anything?"

Sam shakes his head. "The man's chained to the wall, looks pretty young, but too decayed to be that boy band kid. Maybe a week old. Other than that it's pretty cleaned up."

"You should call the boybanders, see if that Sophia chick is still hanging around," Dean says as they head back out to the car.

"You don't think-"

"Batter safe than sorry, Sammy." The Impala growls angrily as he turns it on. "And I think you'd better tell them to prepare for the worst."

\-----

Liam's just digging into his chicken at Nando's, feeling really guilty every time he looks over at the empty sixth chair that should be occupied by one Harry Edward Styles, when his phone rings.

"Hello?" he says, hurrying to swallow. Uch, spicy.

"Liam, it's Sam," the voice on the other end says. "Are you eating?"

"Yeah," Liam says sheepishly. "We're at Nando's."

He hears grumbling on the other end of the line, and then Sam says, "Dean wants to know if there's pie."

"What? No, it's a chicken restaurant." Niall's favorite, actually, that's why they're here and not at one of the other countless restaurants in London.

More mumbling. "Is Sophia with you?"

"Yeah, why?" Liam looks across the table at Sophia, where she's smushed in between Niall, who is currently eating with two forks at once, and Louis, who looks much happier than he did turning his meltdown this afternoon.

"Never mind," Sam says. "We've gotta talk. Where can we meet you guys?"

"Uh," Liam mutters. "Back at Harry and Louis' flat, I guess." He gives them the address and tells his mates that they've got to hurry up, and in the car he makes sure that they've all buckled their seat belts just like he always does, but he can't let go of the thought that there was something strange in Sam's voice.

\-----

Harry dreams better than he used to, he knows that much despite not knowing what he's comparing his present dreams to. He dreams of beautiful girls on horses and traveling to far away countries and mermaids and Captain Hook, and at some point during his second year since waking up on the beach, it occurs to him that no matter how happy he is, there are always things that can make him happier.

That's what keeps him up at night in his bed at the castle of the Queen of All the Air, and that's what makes him think that maybe there's something strange about how he got here and how he can't remember anything from before and how his dog speaks to him in English with an Australian accent and has a mermaid's tail and can fly.

But there are things here to keep him distracted, like his growing friendships with Sam who's always serious and Dean who rarely is, and Liam's wedding and Sophia's pregnancy, announced to everyone at Christmas dinner six months after the wedding. And then there's a baby and all of a sudden Harry's an uncle and things like whether or not it's all real seem less important.

"Hey Caesar," Harry says one night as he lays on his bed and watches the magic constellations move on his ceiling. "Do you remember that day I almost drowned?"

"Of course, Harold," Caesar says, curling up at the foot of Harry's bed. "I'll never understand why your mother has never made you take swim lessons."

"How come I can't remember anything from before that?"

"You hit your head, Harold."

Harry reaches up and slips his fingers underneath his curls, rubbing at his scalp. "Are you sure?"

Caesar sighs and scratches at his ear with his paw. "Of course. What's this really about, Harold?"

"Is all of this real?" He stands up and goes to the window, where he can see the whole Kingdom of All the Air, the mountains and the ocean and his mum's flower garden.

"Does that matter?" Caesar says.

"Hmm," Harry says, because he truly doesn't know.

\-----

Sophia knows that most girls prefer to pretend that their lives are romantic comedies, but she likes to think of her own as a death-defying thriller. Since she answered Harry Styles' cell phone, though, her life has been more life a buddy comedy crossed with a horror/suspense movie. The two don't mesh well.

That's what she's thinking about as she sits once again on the overstuffed couch in Liam's living room, watching Sam pace one way and Dean pace the other while Liam looks antsy, Louis and Zayn thumb wrestle, and Niall just looks bored.

"Okay, so the thing is," Dean begins, coming to a stop and crossing his arms. "We're not exactly private detectives."

"I knew we should have called the police," Liam says after a minute of stunned silence, slumping down and putting his head in his hands. "We're not paying you anything."

"We don't want your money."

"What are you saying exactly?" Louis asks.

"We're demon hunters," Dean says.

That's when Louis faints.

When he comes to a minute later, Sophia's pressing a cold towel to his forehead and Sam is explaining the concept of the djin, which is like a genie but more evil, and is probably killing Harry as they speak.

"Why are we just sitting here, then?" Niall is saying as he glares at Sam, glares at Dean, glares at everyone who isn't already on his feet preparing for a rescue mission.

"We can't just storm the place, Ni," Liam says, always the voice of reason. "We don't even know what the place is."

"Actually," Sam says, stepping forward and pulling a map out of his back pocket. "We've got a pretty good idea." "This," he says, pointing to a red circle drawn on the map, "is where Sophia found your friend's cell phone. And these are the other warehouses the djin has used recently. So this one has got to be it."

Sophia leans over the table and looks at the map of London. She's lived here for six months already, but the only way she can orient herself on maps of the city is by finding first her university and then her flat.

"Louis, what nightclub where you guys at again?" she asks over her shoulder.

"Pepper," Louis says, coming up behind her. "It's right there." He points it out on the map. The spot where Sophia found Harry's cellphone, York and 59th, is the midpoint between the nightclub and the suspected djin hideout.

"That makes sense," Dean says. "You can follow us there, but you have to wait in the car. And don't let the djin touch you!" They all nod solemnly and turn for the door.

Sophia's about to follow when Dean grabs her by her sweatshirt-covered elbow.

"Wait, Sophia, can I talk to you for a second?" he says.

She nods. "Yeah, sure, what-" Dean whips a small vial out of his shirt pocket and opens it, flinging water all over Sophia. "What was that for?"

"She's clean," Dean says over his shoulder to Sam. He recaps the vial and slips it into his pocket.

"That's not Eunice," Sam says.

All Sophia can think is that the sooner they find Harry, the better.

In the car, Sophia squeezes out her wet hair and sits in the passenger seat next to Liam, who drives in silence. They follow the Impala up and down the streets of London and pull up behind it outside the warehouse. Dean sends a warning glare at them as he and Sam go inside. Dean grasps a silver sword in his hand.

"Hey," Sophia says quietly, bumping her shoulder against Liam's. The other boys are occupying themselves in the backseat, playing on their cell phones and worrying in their own ways. "Penny for your thoughts?"

He smiles at her, but she can tell it's not real. "Just worried."

"Do you do anything else?" she says lightly, like it's a joke, but they both know it's not.

"Well, you should stop," she says more firmly. "Sam and Dean are basically comic book superheroes, so they're going to save the day. It's what they do."

"Comic book superheroes?" he repeats, the edge of a laugh in his voice.

"Basically."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, listening to the radio play pop music that's completely unsuited to their moods. Sophia pulls her jacket tighter around her like it can protect her from the unknown, from the monsters that hid under her bed as a child, the ones she always believed were make-believe. Until today.

"If we don't get Harry back, will you sing all his parts on the next album?" Liam asks after a while. Serena laughs, because this one's definitely supposed to be a joke, but she knows that no matter how much they make light of the situation, the fear will still be there, gnawing at everything they thought they knew.

\-----

Since Louis woke up this morning to find Harry not in his bed or lying naked in the front hallway or asleep in the kitchen floor in front of the open refrigerator, he's given himself approximately 45 seconds per hour to consider the possibility that Harry is Dead. Dead with a big D. Not like, "I can't believe you did that, you're so dead" with a little d, which is what Louis said to Harry just the other night when Harry finished off Louis' carton of Extra Special Chocolate Milk without asking.

Sitting in the car outside the warehouse, in which Sam and Dean are hopefully kicking ass and taking names (an expression Louis' always been fond for but has never had the occasion to use), he gives himself a full two minutes for pre-mourning.

Harry's probably not Dead though, right? Louis' holding out for that. Because why would you murder an internationally famous pop star without first demanding a ransom? Although you might if you were a monster, which is what they're facing, according to Sam and Dean. The whole monster thing throws a wrench in every vein of logic Louis tries to pursue.

So instead he turns to chastising himself for probably overreacting, because Harry's fine. He's totally absolutely one hundred percent fine. Right? Louis knows that if he's not, he's the one who's going to have to call Harry's mum.

"This is useless," Niall says after three silent minutes. He's got the door open and is running toward the warehouse before anyone can stop him. But another half second passes, and Louis is right behind him.

He grabs Niall's elbow just as he's about to slip inside. "Be quiet," he hisses. Everyone else comes running up behind him.

Louis sees her first, the djin, tall and blonde and skinny and crouched down with her hands out like claws, getting ready to lunge at Sam, who's placed himself in between her and Harry--Harry!--whose unconscious form is chained to the wall at the wrist.

"That's her," Louis whispers to no one in particular. "That's the girl from the club the other night!"

Apparently he wasn't whispering as quietly as the thought, though, because the djin and Sam and Dean and everyone else in the room besides the unconscious Harry are now staring at him.

"It's Victoria, dear," she says, her voice sounding just as slimy as the grin that's spreading across her face.

With her focus on Louis, she doesn't see Sam and Dean moving behind her, doesn't the dagger dripping lamb's blood until Dean's already thrusting it through her chest.

"It was nice meeting you, Victoria," Dean says as she falls to the ground.

\-----

"Is he alive?"

Liam is the first one to break the silence that falls over them after the chaos.

"Yes," Dean says, feeling Harry's pulse in his wrist. Then he scoops him up in his arms. Liam grimaces as Harry's arms hang loosely toward the grimy floor. "But you should get him to the hospital. He'll need a blood transfusion."

"Come along, Caesar," Harry mutters, eyelids fluttering. They all gather around, eyes wide, for a closer look.

"Harry?" Louis says tentatively.

Harry's eyes open and he looks up at Dean, who scowls back at him. "Deanald Trump!" he says, giggling to himself as his eyes fall shut again.

"Do you know him?" Liam asks.

"No." Dean shakes his head. "But sometimes wish universes sort of predict the future."

Dean and Sam help load Harry into Liam's SUV, where Niall, Zayn, Louis, and Sophia attempt to make him comfortable.

"Thank you again for all your help," Liam says to them as the doors are shut. "If you ever need anything in London, feel free to give one of us a call."

"Sure," Sam says with a laugh. "Next time we're in need of a boy band."

"You never know," Liam says. You never know.

At the hospital, Harry goes in and out of sleep for several hours, mumbling things about Caesar and a baby and the queen of all the air, much to the amusement of his friends, who lounge around his bedside waiting for him to wake up. Liam joins them after using his best smile to convince the nurses that Harry really was bit by a very aggressive dog and left to bleed out for a while before they found him.

When Harry does finally wake up, Liam's the only one there.

"Hey mate," Liam says, smiling with relief. "How ya feeling?"

"Liam," he says, his voice hoarse. "Where am I? Where's Caesar?"

"Caesar?"

"My mermaid dog."

Sam warned him about this, about how hard it would be to convince Harry that the wish universe wasn't real.

"It was a dream, Harry. All of it was a dream."

Harry falls silent, looking more pensive than Liam's ever seen it. "I thought about that, you know, when I was there? But you were there too. And Niall and Zayn and Louis and Sophia and Deanald and Samueli! And it all seemed so real."

"Harry, you've never met Dean and Sam and Sophia," Liam says. "What are you talking about?"

Just then, the door opens and Sophia enters, Louis in tow.

"Sophia!" Harry squeals. "How's the baby?"

"What baby?" A look of panic appears on her face as she looks desperately at Liam. "How does he know who I am?"

"Of course I know who you are, Sophia," Harry says before Liam can answer. "You're Liam's wife, aren't you?"

"What-no-I-" Sophia mutters, blushing bright red.

"Harry, my girlfriend is Danielle," Liam says slowly, wondering if Harry's memory has been damaged too.

"No, that ended ages ago," Harry says, now sounding slightly doubtful. "At least I think it did. What year is this?"

"What do you need years for?" says another voice, and Liam turns to see Sam and Dean entering the room.

"Deanald! Samueli!" Harry cries, holding his arms out for a hug.

"I think his brain's been addled," Liam says.

"Oh, that's normal," Dean says. "Just give him more Vicodin. He'll sleep it off."

"Sleep, mmm, that sounds good," Harry mumbles, burrowing into his pillow. "Sing to me, please. Except you, Deanald. You're a terrible singer."

"Kid's smart," Sam says, earning himself an elbow in the side as the room erupts in a melodic lullaby.

"Oh God, we have to get out of here," Dean mutters, dragging his brother from the room.

"Can we go to the Tower of London now?"

"We have to-"

"But you promised!"

"Fine. But I'm trapping you in a suit of armor and going home without you."


End file.
